Serbia’s former FM says Belgrade hosted Afghan peace talks

N1

Serbian Parliament Speaker Ivica Dacic confirmed on Tuesday that Belgrade hosted talks between the Taliban and the Afghan authorities on several occasions while he was Foreign Minister. N1 has been granted access to photographs from the meetings.

sastanak avganistan talibani u beogradu
privatna arhiva
sastanak avganistan talibani u beogradu
privatna arhiva

He told the pro-regime TV Pink that the peace talks were organized with permission from President Aleksandar Vucic, adding that he never spoke of the negotiations because of an agreement not to. “I never mentioned this to date because we agreed that this would remain a secret with nothing in public to make sure the negotiations don’t crash,” he said.

“They were here three times with myself as their host and the President of Afghanistan on video link. We hosted representatives of the Afghan Peace Council and the Taliban, that is their faction. They met three times and later the great powers took over when they saw what we were doing; they said we’ll do in Doha in Qatar. We see the results,” Dacic said.

He said that the Serbian authorities did not interfere in the negotiations which were held in a good atmosphere and were commonly believed to have achieved progress since a truce was declared. According to him, Serbia as host of the peace talks did well in relation to Afghanistan because “both sides were grateful”.

sastanak avganistan talibani u beogradu
privatna arhiva
sastanak avganistan talibani u beogradu
privatna arhiva

Dacic said that Serbia has no reason to believe that the former Afghan regime will be better towards it than some new regime and recalled that what he said was America’s “puppet regime” in Kabul was among the first to recognize Kosovo like they were told to do.